Get your literature-loving students hooked on science by featuring kiddie lit and other trade books during science lessons. Ms. Winston’s Blog will give you lots of ideas for getting started. She reviews three professional resources and shares some ideas for using literature like Turtle Bay and That Magnetic Dog to teach key concepts. For many visual learners (and for book worms), this is the way to make science unforgettable.

Visit Leanne Poindexter’s Blog to see how she and her class showed their enthusiasm for the visual arts. Every art student at Lowes Island worked together to create this large reproduction of a famous Chuck Close self-portrait. What a fantastic way to promote inclusion and community while teaching about collaborative art and a specific artist. You must click over to the blog to see the finished product. It is stunning!

If you have students with autism or other disabilities who need the help of visual supports, you may want to examine the photos and examples over at Do2Learn. Picture schedules and visual directions can help students become more independent, learn unfamiliar tasks, and reduce their anxiety about new routines (e.g., checking a book out from library) and classroom activities (e.g., playing a math game with a peer).

Keep in mind that these supports are not just for students with disabilities; many students are more visual than auditory and can profit from visual models, directions, or rules.

John Kryk, biologist and artist, has created a phenomenal web resource for educators. His cell biology “movies” will be a great supplement to lectures and whole class discussions. The clips would also work well during a stations/centers lesson where learners had many different ways to study cells (e.g., watching clips, reading about cells).

I know so many tactile learners who would love this lesson from Krazy About Kiddos. Students in this first grade classroom get to stretch out and squeeze cotton balls to make the shapes and textures of the different types of clouds. How memorable and how fun! This would also make a great bulletin board.

If you have students who cannot pull or stretch the materials on their own, you could have peer partners pull and stretch with or for them before having them match the different types of clouds with their correct names. Glue could also be used to “draw” types of clouds if this is easier for some.